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Assimil Learning methods | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Roger Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6388 days ago 159 posts - 161 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Indonesian | Message 17 of 96 18 January 2007 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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How long does It take you linguamor to complete one of these cycles?
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| Linguamor Decaglot Senior Member United States Joined 6414 days ago 469 posts - 599 votes Speaks: English*, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Danish, French, Norwegian, Portuguese, Dutch | Message 18 of 96 20 January 2007 at 1:56am | IP Logged | ||
On average, I would say I have done five or six new lessons and five or six of the preceding lessons of a language course in about two or three hours, sometimes in one day, but often over two or more days, since I usually have used several courses in parallel to maximize the amount of comprehensible input. It does not take very long to read, listen to, and understand the lessons in most language materials since most do not have a large number of dialogs and readings, and these are what I focused on, just checking exercises and such for any words or expressions that were not used in the dialogs and readings. I also made sure I read and understood the example phrases and sentences accompanying grammar explanations. I should also point out that after completing a course, I would often go through the course again, this time straight through at a quicker pace without reviewing previous lessons, and for those courses with audio I would continue to listen to the lessons until my comprehension was very good, since aural comprehension is the skill I have had to work on most. Edited by Linguamor on 20 January 2007 at 2:46am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Roger Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6388 days ago 159 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Indonesian | Message 19 of 96 21 January 2007 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||
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When one has completed a lesson, does one know that lesson by heart, or just the basics of what the lesson was trying to teach?
I ask because some people can complete many a lesson in one day. But it takes some, maybe 1-2 days to complte a lesson. An example on this thread is 'vinnie's' way of doing assimil and that of 'linguamor'. where vinnie takes roughly 2 days to complete 1 lesson and linguamor between 2-6 lessons a DAY. Myself it takes roughly 25-30 mins to listen and read and between 1-2 hours for the writing-re reading part (I write it out several times) per lesson. But some people just do 25-30 min per lesson and then move on to the next lesson. If you are one of these who does only 25-30 mins per lesson and then moves on, how much material do you digest? As someone who does a lesson for a whole day I can say I pretty much can recall the whole lesson still a week later, is this the case with the shorter version?. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6705 days ago 4250 posts - 5710 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 20 of 96 21 January 2007 at 12:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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I really think that's up to you. Studying a lesson so it can be recited from memory could have its merits (you will in a short period have plenty of useful sentences), while following the instructions and focusing on passive skills first also could be "enough".
It's a matter of definition of "complete". I can't say it's necessary to know a dialogue forwards and backwards to complete it. To spend hours on a lesson that basically takes a few minutes would be going against the method, but to each their own. Edited by jeff_lindqvist on 03 February 2007 at 6:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Vinnie Groupie England Joined 6320 days ago 65 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English* | Message 21 of 96 02 February 2007 at 2:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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After having some in depth conversations about assimill with some of my friends we came to the idea that assimil is probably one of the worst language learning courses you can buy for the majority of people. I do know that loads of people have learned languages from them, but how i dont know. I went through assimill italian many times and liked it but i have now come to relise that is is really ****. The english translations are really bad and i found the grammar does not explain enough, if i re write the translations it would be an improvement, and add more grammar points to it. Has any ones else had similar problems with assimill, or the opposite?
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| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6739 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 22 of 96 02 February 2007 at 6:38pm | IP Logged | ||
That Assimil translation into English can be spotty has indeed been mentioned in this forum, and as far as their courses being sketchy on grammar explanations, it's almost by design - their method is built on the idea of "intuitive assimilation". So, some people like Assimil, some not so much. My impression is that Assimil alone may not be the best approach for someone learning their first foreign language on their own, because such a person may not yet have adequate intuition to figure out the grammar with so few explantions and exercises. Such a person will still get a lot from the course, but it may need to be supplemented with other, perhaps more elementary, materials. Edited by frenkeld on 02 February 2007 at 6:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7001 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 23 of 96 02 February 2007 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do most of the Assimil courses have a huge learning gap between the "with ease" course and the advanced "using" course? Spanish with ease has slow audio, short simple sentences, and is not particularly challenging. Using Spanish, has very fast audio, long sentences, and a wide variety of vocabulary. Personally, I think the audio in the first course could have been slowed down less, and they could use another coursebook between "with ease" and "using". Is that par for the course with Assimil?
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| dmg Diglot Senior Member Canada dgryski.blogspot.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6807 days ago 555 posts - 605 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Dutch, Esperanto | Message 24 of 96 03 February 2007 at 11:59am | IP Logged | ||
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The dialogues at the start of "Using French" are slower than the dialogues at the end of 'New French with Ease".
In terms of actual content, I think it flows quite well, though. I'd also like to add my $0.02 to the discussion re: the efficacy of Assimil. Personally, I think Assimil is a fantastic _tool_ for language learning, but that you actually need more. Having grown up in Canada and taken a number of years of French when I was young, combined with my own learning style (lyrics and dialogues stick in my brain very easily), Assimil was _exactly_ what I needed after I moved to Montreal and decided to take up French. The dialogues were entertaining and easy to memorize, the vocabulary was wide-ranging and useful. The entire course was very well presented. However, I agree the grammar sections were lacking, and in fact I had picked up a "Teach Yourself French Grammar" book to reacquaint myself with the language before diving in to Assimil. Now, I recommend "New French with Ease" to all my Canadian Friends who want to learn French. I know they already have a slight basis in the language (pronounciation, basic understanding of the basic forms of verb tenses and conjugations, etc.) from grade school and high school, since it's mandatory. And I think that's the kicker. Having not used Assimil to go from zero-knowledge to fluency, I can't say if it itself would work for me. Would I use Assimil _alone_ to study another language I didn't already have some exposure to? I don't know. I might start with it, but knowing that I'd need to pick up a grammar book and maybe a Pimsleur course or two to move the memorized dialogues into actual, reflex-like conversation. There definitely seem to be two factions in this forum, the Assimil side and the FSI side. Although I find my faith in Assimil wavering slightly (since looking back objectively I realize I had a substantial grounding in French before starting it), I know that I would have a really hard time learning from a course like drills-based FSI-like course. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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